Boston residents urged to take advantage of flu clinics

22 free flu clinics located throughout Boston

UPDATED 6:24 PM EST Jan 12, 2013

BOSTON -

In response to the ongoing flu epidemic, Boston city officials are urging residents to get vaccinated.

Mayor Tom Menino and the Boston Public Health Commission were encouraging residents to take advantage of one of 22 free flu clinics that were taking place at community health centers throughout the weekend.

The clinics were held after Menino declared a public health emergency earlier in the week.

“The push this weekend is to get as many people vaccinated as possible,” Menino said.

Public Health Commission Director Barbara Ferrer said a child under 6 years old from Boston who was diagnosed with a case of the flu died this week, but it was not determined if the flu was the victim's cause of death.

She said five adults over age 65 have died in the city this season.

As 2,000 new cases of flu in Massachusetts were confirmed by health officials, the state is reassuring residents that there is plenty of vaccine still available, even as clinics around the state are running out of the vaccine and turning people away.

Interim public health commissioner Lauren Smith said the state has distributed 760,000 doses of vaccine so far this season and there remains ample supply. She said officials are working with local boards of health to open public clinics to meet shot demand.

Health officials said they saw a great turnout Saturday morning at the free clinics and hoped that the trend continued.

"Some of the sites -- there were lines out the door of people coming to be vaccinated, wanting to get vaccinated," said Dr. Anita Barry, director of the Infectious Disease Bureau at the Boston Public Health Commission.

She said more than 5,000 doses of the vaccine were distributed, some of which ran out at some locations. Those locations were then re-stocked to keep up with the demand.

Barry said despite the number of cases on the rise, it’s not too late to get the vaccination.

"It's really important that something be done to try to head it off at the pass, and the vaccination is really the best way to do that," she said. “Once influenza's in the community, it tends to be there for about 12 weeks, so we still have some time to go with a lot of influenza circulating in Boston."

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